When Leaving, Being Gone, and Returning
by beaucoup riant
Summary: It is difficult to leave behind everything you've ever wanted. Alone, alone, alone. That is the resonating music of those left behind. And maybe when he returns, there is a happy ending.....but who knows?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** Finally! Summer! But here is a story, part 1 out of 3. This is a story in itself. But here is part 1 and if you want to read the rest, look it up in its own separate story. I really do hope you enjoy!

Italics are thoughts.

**Summary:** It is difficult to leave behind everything you've ever wanted. Even harder to know that you'll never return even though your heart's deepest desire is to come back

* * *

Cloud stands by the doorway and watches as Tifa tucks Marlene first into bed. She smoothes the covers over the small girl and hums a soft lullaby, sitting next to her until she has fallen asleep. He watches as Tifa pads her way softly next to the young boy standing drowsily next to his own, awaiting for her to tuck him in as well. Denzel was having a good day, a day where his sickness didn't weigh him down. He had been able to eat and play happily for a few hours.

He watches as Denzel grasps Tifa's hand in his when she leads him towards his bed. She tucks him in and smiles at him when he sleepily asks if they could have pancakes tomorrow. Cloud smiles when she whispers, "Yes of course." And Denzel has slipped away into the realm of dreams where they cannot follow with the reassurance.

She doesn't quite look at him as she walks towards him. But that's okay because he doesn't quite look at her either. She leaves the door ajar so that the light in the hallway could pour some streak of light in the children's bedroom. She leaves it ajar, he knows, so that she can easily check up on them. Tifa finally looks at him then, giving him a soft smile. He nods but doesn't give her a smile in return. But his eyes soften and she knows.

They walk together the short distance of the hall. Occasionally, his hands whisper out without his awareness in hopes to catch hers. Each time, before their hands could intermingle, Cloud catches himself.

"_Stupid, stupid! Don't do it" _He yells at himself.

Soon they are at the end of the hall, where their path branches off. She goes to her bedroom and he goes to his. Tifa's hand brushes his arm, the one he has started to recently cover in a long sleeve cloth. She doesn't know why it's there and he doesn't want to tell her. Her fingers give his bicep muscle a soft squeeze before murmuring her goodnight. His arms still tingles with her warmth when he whispers goodnight to her as well. Cloud feels at peace as he closes his bedroom door and prepares for sleep.

The peace doesn't last long. Almost as soon as he closes the door, his arm starts to burn. Hissing, he drops on his knees. He pushes his forehead against the cool floorboards as his hand grips the other arm. He's hoping that the sizzling pain will subside. It only grows worst and he bites his lips to suppress the shout of pain threatening to choke its way out.

Cloud's head feels torn. Images of fire in his mind, whispers of a madman's laugh, silver hair, and taunting green eyes. He doesn't feel it when his body collapses against the floor and he has curled into a ball. His fingers feel the wet black puss through the cloth though but he doesn't feel the pain in his lip when he bites too hard.

"_Don't let Tifa know! Don't let Tifa hear! Don't let Tifa.." _He chants it over and over again. She has enough to worry about. How can he be her hero if she has to worry about him? How can he tell Denzel it's okay if the boy sees him so weak from this disease as well? After long terrifying minutes of agony, he crawls his way to his bed. His actions are automatic after that, bandaging his arm and falling into bed.

"_Just one more day, just one more day." _He tells himself. He'll stay one more day. He'll leave eventually. He's thought about it for so long but he doesn't want to go anywhere. He knows he should go. He can't stay. Cloud knows he's put Tifa through too much. All those times of taking care of him…all those times she's saved him. He just can't let her see that he's dying. He'd rather have her believe he left on his own free will and is just…hiding from her. Better than having her know that he's dying in front of her. He doesn't want her to feel helpless and without hope, because Tifa without hope broke his heart.

He attempts to drift off to sleep. One more day, he tells himself. One more—

He buries his face in the pillow and screams into it. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! It's burning him, from the inside out.

"Cloud? Are you alright?" Her voice whispers through the door with a soft knock. His heart stops when he hears her hand twisting the knob.

"I'm fine!" He whispers harshly back.

"Oh. Alright…" He hates himself for the drop in her voice. "Are you sure?"

He hates the hope in her voice then too. Why does she always want to help him? Why does she always want to take care of him? He harshly says yes and a goodnight. When she leaves, Cloud can only feel ashamed. Why had he been so cruel?

And he knows then that he had to leaves _tonight_. There is a sharp pain in his heart, something emotional and not physical, when he realizes this. His last conversation with her would be him pushing her away again. Cloud wishes that he could stop keeping her at arm's length. All he's ever wanted to do was to keep her close and yet, he pushes her so far away. It is heartbreaking.

He drifts in and out of a light sleep, waiting for another hour before he gets up off the bed and prepares. It is well after two in the morning when he gets up. He leaves the bed unmade and packs a sleeping bag and other simple camping necessities. He takes some delivery forms and makes it seem that this was just another extended trip for deliveries. Give Tifa a pretense for a short while, delay the pain.

Cloud packs his motorcycle before coming back upstairs. He stops at her door and listens. Silence saves for the light breathing of two children. Cloud opens the door and walks in silently. And even in the dark room, she is the only thing that shines, every bit representing how much of a North Star she was to him. A lone comet in a pitch velvet sky in his eyes.

Even in the silence, he cannot find the right words to say. Even without her awake, with her knowledge and her eyes searing into his skin, he can't manage to speak. He's always been afraid. Afraid of what?

So his thoughts do the talking because when Tifa is up and awake, she can hear them just as loudly as if he was speaking them outloud. Maybe, somehow they can reach to the dream world she has slipped into too. He can only hope.

'_Do you know…I feel weak all the time? Yet when I look at you, I feel stronger. You make me feel like somehow, no matter what I do, you'll still look at me the same way. I won't be a monster to you and I won't be a failure to you. Just me. Even when I don't know sometimes who this 'me' is…you will. I just know it. Can feel it down in my bones.'_

'_I thought that I could finally tell you this. Tell you how beautiful you are to me. Even try to convey to you, in words, of how much I…. __**love **__you. Your smiles and even your tears. Your eyes, even when there's this little glint in the corner that tells me you're angry or you're plotting. Your hands with all their scars and calluses.'_

'_And just when I felt like I could finally tell you this…things just push me miles and miles away.'_

He inches closer to her. He kneels at her bedside, holds his breath when she turns in her sleep and faces him. Panic and awe clutches at his heart. She's absolutely beautiful. He leans forward, just a little. Not quite touching her when he wants to, so very much.

'_Since I got this…sickness, Geostigma, I just can't help but think it's all so unfair. I've been trying to leave for a while now…. And yet I always find a way to delay it because I don't want to picture days without seeing you. I don't want to know moments where I won't know that I can go home to you.'_

Cloud feels like dying, right here. The agony of his thoughts upon his heart felt like…there wasn't words to describe it. Plain and simple: it hurt. Like hell.

'_But I have to go. I don't want to see you lose hope if or when you find out I have Geostigma. I don't want to see Denzel lose hope that he won't recover. I don't want to see you watch me die. I don't want you to help me damn it!'_

'_I hate it when you help people. Do you know why, Tifa? Because you help so much and it always feels like…you're giving yourself away without leaving anything left for you. So I'm leaving, leaving so you can have some small piece of your sanity and your hope and your heart for just you. Because I know that if I stay and you get to watch me die, I'm going to rob you of that piece.'_

He smiles when she whispers his name. But it is a bittersweet smile. She dreams of him and it gives him both pleasure and pain. Knowing that he is in her dreams, like she is in his, makes him happy. It gives him hope. But it pains him at the same time that this knowledge comes when he is leaving her. Leaving her was and is never something he is happy about doing.

Cloud straightens. He holds his breath and before he could even think about it further, dropped the lightest kiss anyone could've ever given to someone upon her cheek.

"Goodbye Tifa." He drinks in the sight of her. He tries to memorize every detail of her as he walks out that door.

And he leaves like smoke dissipating.

* * *

**Author's notes:**Well that was a little intense, I think. I've had the idea for a while and it actually took me 2 months to finally finish it. As usual, I never proofread the entire thing. I just write because I'm afraid the inspiration will leave me just as soon as I get it. So enjoy it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's notes:** I wanted to post up pretty much all of the story at once. I guess 2/3 chapters is darn close right? I guess I can leave you guys in suspense! But I really do hope you enjoyed this story so far. Stick around for more!

**Summary:** And while he is gone, she spends her days in loneliness. She tries to reach out to him but can never graze his presence. Alone, alone, alone. That is the resonating music of her soul.

* * *

For a while, Cloud's pretense of a long delivery trip worked. She still calls cheerfully to remind him to eat a lunch or asks for supplies from local markets that she think he might pass by. She doesn't really pay much heed to how he doesn't pick up his PHS during those phone calls. He must be busy, she reasons. He must not have service, she tells herself. Tifa still tidies up his room when she cleans the house. She still prepares a late dinner for him, sitting on the counter waiting to be heated just in case he was going to be coming home.

But when a week passes by and not a word has passed between them, suddenly she knows. Knows that he has left and won't be coming back. Knows that he led her to believe he was out for a delivery trip to avoid confrontation and needing to explain himself. The comprehension strikes at her heart.

Somewhere in the deep depths of her mind and heart, Tifa has always acknowledged that one day Cloud would take off. But despite this, her heart had created a family in which he was included. Her heart had continued to harbor feelings for him. Always believed that despite what the bright signs that went up in her mind, he was going to fulfill her fantasy one day and told her he loved her. Told her what she could sometimes see in his glowing eyes.

At first, there is self loathing. What had she done to driven him away? Was it too much too soon? Had she not spoken enough? Spoken too much? Done too little or done too much? What did she do? What did she do? And then there is hatred for him. Why did he have to hurt her so? Why did he live in the past and not the present? Why couldn't he love her?

Later it was just nothing but overwhelming loneliness and it was the current boat of emotion she was riding on. Perhaps she was always meant to be alone. She was meant to be uncared for and loved. Perhaps she was just too much for anyone to take: her scarred body, her children, her fighting skills that could defeat about any man, and her history. Yes that was it, her fault for just not being enough.

Tifa has never been an insecure person. And for brief moments throughout the next couple of days, she allows herself to wallow there in a pit she digs. But then when she sees Marlene struggling to make her and Denzel breakfast, Tifa resolves to be strong. She's always been strong. Always had managed to find a way to continue fighting when there was losing hope.

So she spends her days tending to the bar, glaring at customers who look doubtingly at Denzel and the telling black scar. She spends her evenings taking care of two kids who have become hers. Early nights tucking them into bed and sleeping beside them to scare off nightmares and reading bedtime stories. She puts all of herself into making them know that she's there for them and taking care of them. She'll be enough for them, she thinks to herself.

But late nights? Late nights, there was nothing but the echo of loneliness. She knows she's never shared a bed with Cloud but just knowing that either he was down the hall or will be down the hall, sleeping so close, she'd never felt lonely. She let herself hope that someday they would share a bed. But late at night when Tifa falls away from reality into the dreams her subconscious brews, she wakes up with dry tracks of tears on her cheeks because her hope for her dreams just seem to be running further and further away from her.

There are days when she forgets the life that Cloud and her almost shared. Those days are days she enjoys the most because she feels that her smiles and her efforts are less strained. But phone calls that ring around the bar reminds her of the reality that he had left the life that almost shared.

Tifa still calls him. They had gone from happily telling him news of daily life that he had missed and telling him to come home to simple curt messages of the latest customer that had called for him. She had stopped hoping for him to pick up his PHS. Tifa slowly just begins to erase him out. She keeps his bedroom door closed. There are no dinners set aside for him.

But still Tifa keeps the ring he's given her. She lets herself hold onto the tiniest speck of hope but pushes it in the far corner of her mind. As she's living her life after Cloud has gone, she finds herself somewhat…happy. Content that somehow with what has happened, she's going to survive and be okay.

When a man hits on her and flirts with her, Tifa can't escape by how wrong it feels. The men won't have spiky blonde hair and child-like but not so innocent bright blue eyes. They won't know her like he does. And she won't ever know them like she would him. And it digs holes in her already worn heart.

Lonely, lonely, lonely!

The children don't speak of him. They know how much pain it brings to her. Denzel, who had once found Cloud a hero, finds him bittersweet. Still a hero but still a man who has bought such pain to a new found loved person. Marlene feels sad and she buries the drawings she'd done of a 'happily ever after' Cloud and Tifa under her bed. When she draws family pictures, Cloud is no longer in it. He had transitioned from scary new stranger, to another dad and almost lover of Tifa, to misplaced friend. When she does draws pictures of Cloud and Tifa on the same page, she rips it and throws it out. She doesn't want Tifa to find it and become sad.

They stick to Tifa and fill her days with as much things they could. When Tifa is busy and distracted, she is happy. She is strong and the children love her best that way. She loves herself best that way. But when Marlene and Denzel see the rare sight of children walking with fathers, they feel lonely too. For those thoughts, they feel shame too. Tifa should be enough but they can't help but miss the silently loving man.

And so while he is gone, loneliness is the thing that echoes across those he left behind. They wonder had Cloud ever loved them? Had he ever wanted them?

And it is all tested when they're threatened.

* * *

**Author's notes:** This goes on to the events of Advent Children if you can't tell! Enjoy! I am writing up Umbrella up right now. For those who are wondering, there will be a NEW link to it!


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